Outside Man
by D. Davis
Summary: Aftermath of "The Body"--from a different point of view


Title: Outside Man   
Author: Deborah Davis E-mail: dadavis@nyx.net  
Feedback: Proof that someone read this would make my day.  
Rating: G.   
Disclaimer: All is Joss's, of course.  
Spoilers: The Body,   
Notes: My first fic in the Buffy-verse. Aftermath of "The Body"-another point of view.  
  
  
  
I've lost her. It hits me as the car tires drone over the highway toward LA. I've lost my girl and I don't even know when.   
  
Was it after the divorce, when Joyce and girls moved to this little town? Did she blame me so much?  
  
Or was it after she burned down the gym? Was I too harsh with her? I just wanted her life to go right, for heaven's sake. I was just another worried parent, but after that...   
  
Was it when I missed her 18th birthday? Or when she realized that Sondra was more than just my secretary?  
  
Or was it only this week, when she called me with the news about her mother? I know she expected me to come right away. I could hear the disappointment-no, worse, the resignation-in her voice when I said I couldn't. Buffy doesn't understand what this year has been like, how hard I've had to work to hold it all together. I have responsibilities--to Sondra, to the people who work for me. Companies like mine are going belly up all over; I couldn't just run out on the meeting with the venture capitalists, not for the death of a woman I haven't been close to in five years.  
  
Oh, I don't mean that as coldly as it sounds. I know I have responsibilities to Buffy and Dawn, too. Sometimes, I'm just stretched too thin, is all. And, dammit, I tried. I told Buffy I'd be up there before the end of the week, and I was. I told her to send me the paperwork; told her I'd pay for everything. But she just said (in that new, quiet, mature voice that doesn't sound like my girl at all), "It's OK, Dad, there's insurance; we've got it taken care of."   
  
"We've got it taken care of."   
  
Now that little phrase seems like a bitter joke on me. Every time I try to get near my girl, every time I try to show her she can depend on me, I hear that polite, dismissive phrase.   
  
"Buffy, people will probably come back to the house after the funeral," I told her. "There should be food. I can-"  
  
"We've got it taken care of Dad. Will and Tara are on top of it."  
  
When I asked about Joyce's sister, Eleanor. "How is she getting here, Buffy? I could-"  
  
"Taken care of, Dad. Xander's gone to meet her plane."  
  
When I asked her to let me deal with the lawyers, the insurance, and the gallery.  
  
"It's taken care of, Dad. I think Giles and I have it figured out."  
  
I think I hate that damned Englishman.  
  
At the cemetery, I imagined I'd stand beside my girls, ready to lend my support. But somehow when we all crowd around the grave, I end up behind and to one side. When Dawn starts to cry, it's Buffy she leans against, and Buffy doesn't lean at all. She stands so straight and strong, supporting Dawn; she grips the hand of her red-haired friend, but she stands on her own. I am so proud of her.   
  
The only time I see her waver is when she and Dawn step forward and each toss rose into the grave. When Buffy steps back, she's shaking, and I want to step forward wrap her in my arms, but that Englishman is there ahead of me, steadying her from behind with a hand under each of her elbows. She gives him a grateful look, and that's when I know that when she cries (if she ever cries), it will be in his arms, not mine.  
  
Afterward, at the house, I'm invisible. The living room is full of Joyce's friends. She always made so many friends, wherever we went. In our old neighborhood, I barely knew the neighbors by sight, but Joyce knew their life stories. She knew who'd lost a child, who'd had their heart broken, who was lonely and depressed. She hurt for them.   
  
Oh, she was no saint. She could be foolish and impulsive and hotly angry-but she could never be cold. My girls are like her in some ways, I think. They have her humor and her empathy. Dawn has her endearing clumsiness. But sometimes, in Buffy, I think I see something...else. Something hard and older than her years. Something I don't understand.  
  
Joyce, I understood. Even when we parted, even when we started to want different things, I understood her. She was direct and straight-ahead. And a good mother. I've always said that; you can ask anyone. I never bad-mouthed my ex; we never used the kids against each other. I guess you could say it was a good divorce. At least it put an end to our fights.  
  
You know, I never dreamed I'd end up this way, over forty and still confused. Watching my daughter from across the room and wondering how I got so outside her life. It's as though she and her friends talk in some code I can't break. Dawn I feel I can still get near. But Buffy...  
  
Joyce was just Buffy's age when we met at a dance. Well, in the cloakroom at a dance. I'd been fixed up with a frat brother's cousin. She was good-looking and rich and vapid. Within half an hour, the whine of her voice made my back teeth hurt.   
  
I was actually hiding from her in the cloakroom when I literally stumbled on Joyce. There I was, drink in one hand, peeking out at the group I should have been with, and backing up into the rack of coats, when I stepped on this girl. She squeaked; I jumped. We were both so embarrassed.  
  
"Excuse me I was just, um..."  
  
"Yes of course you were. "  
  
Our embarrassment deepened as neither of us reached for a coat.   
  
"Um-"  
  
"Yeah." And then, unexpectedly, her face was transformed with a mischievous grin. "You know someone as tall as you can't really hide behind that rack. Maybe I'd better give you my spot in the corner."   
  
"Well, if you're done using it." Somehow, looking down into those kind eyes made me feel so much less a fool.  
  
"Sure, I was just taking a breather."  
  
"Me too."  
  
We talked for another ten minutes before I felt guilty enough to go back to my now impatient date. Joyce was there on her own. I was aware of her all night. We met in that darned closet two more times before the evening was out. I never thought we'd come apart.  
  
I shake myself out of my memories and look around. Joyce's friends are picking at the buffet and talking about the part of her life I didn't share. The few who know me don't know what to say to me. When I see that the coffee server is empty, I pick it up, grateful to have something to do. But in the kitchen, I'm lost. Why did I think I'd be able to find anything in Joyce's kitchen? It's been five years since we shared a home, but somehow I assumed I'd just know where she kept the coffee and the measuring spoons.  
  
I fumble around for a few minutes, until a dark-haired young man shoulders me gently aside.  
  
"Here. Let me do that, Mr. Summers."  
  
I surrender the carafe.  
  
"I'm Xander Harris. We didn't meet this morning because I was-"  
  
"-Picking up Eleanor at the airport. Thank you."  
  
"No problem."  
  
I can see that he's at home here, like all of Buffy's friends. He quickly gets the coffee brewing and tea steeping too. The tea is loose in a canister that exhales a spicy scent when he opens it. Joyce never used to drink black tea, just the occasional herbal, and I can't help wondering if she keeps it-kept it, dammit-for the Englishman. How often was he here? What were they to each other?  
  
It grows later and people begin to drift out, but Buffy's young friends show no sign of going. I want to be alone with my girls. Don't these people have homes?  
  
When I can't stand the living room any longer, I slip out onto the back deck. The sun has set. It's a cloudy night; the moon is obscured and I can't see well. It's several minutes before I realize I'm not alone.   
  
"Hey mate."  
  
Cripes, another Englishman. How many can there be in this crappy little California town, anyway? A match flares and as he lights his cigarette I get a good look at him. He's good-looking, in a punk way. An unlikely friend for Joyce, I think.   
  
"Are you a friend of Buffy's?" I ask.  
  
"Me? Oh yeah, me and the Slay-Buffy are real close. Who are you?"  
  
"I'm Hank Summers, her father."  
  
"Her father? Well." He looks me over with a smirk that makes me uncomfortable. Just what has Buffy said about me? Then his expression shifts to something more vulnerable. "How is she?" he asks softly.  
  
I want to laugh bitterly and say I don't know. I may be the last person to know how Buffy feels.   
  
"Maybe you should come in and talk to her, " I say, instead.   
  
"'Fraid your invite won't do the trick, mate. It's Buffy I need to talk to. We had a little misunderstanding-which we could resolve in just a few minutes if she'd come out or just invite me in. But will she? Nooooo. "   
  
His voice rises as he speaks, and I begin to wonder if he's drunk. By God, if he's come here intoxicated on this of all days, I'll throw him off the property. I can do that much to protect my girls.   
  
"Got all her little mates interfering, givin' their opinion; the damn Watcher bouncing me off the walls like a grain sack-"  
  
What is he talking about?  
  
I move to escort him off the property when the back door opens and something shoots by me. To my shock, my daughter has pinned the visitor against the side of the house, the fingers of one hand squeezing his throat.  
  
"What are you doing here?" The coldness and hostility in her voice stun me.   
  
"Ummjustelmmm"  
  
"Dad, go inside," she snaps at me. There's such unthinking authority in her voice, I almost do as I'm told, but then I turn in the doorway to watch them.  
  
She's put him down (did I really see her pick him up?) and he's rubbing his neck with a look of injured innocence.  
  
"I just came to say I'm sorry about your mum."  
  
"Yeah, right."  
  
"That's right. I liked your mum. And she liked me, before you went and made her all scared of me again."  
  
I'm trying to understand this exchange, when I feel a firm hand on my arm. Buffy's friend Xander draws me inside.  
  
"It's not safe outside at night in Sunnydale, Mr. Summers," he says, exchanging a look over my shoulder with someone behind me. The door closes in my face as he goes after Buffy.  
  
"But Buffy-"  
  
"--Will be fine." It's the red-headed girl with unusual name. Willow, that's it. "That's just a, uh, friend of ours. He a, he's had um, a head injury. Yes, a really unique head injury. It makes him a little, um, confused, and excitable. And it makes him say strange thing sometimes. Really big with the strangeness. So if he said anything strange to you, that's why."  
  
"But is Buffy safe with him? He doesn't get violent?"  
  
"Violent? Oh, no, he can't-won't-get violent." She smiles at me. "Buffy can take care of herself."  
  
So there it is; Buffy can take care of herself. When she can't, there are people here who take care of her. And I'm not one of them. When I kiss her good-bye, she hugs me tight and whispers, "Love you, Dad." And I know she means it, but I'm still outside. I have an overnight bag packed in my car, but Buffy hasn't asked me to stay, so I don't mention it. Before I'm even out of the driveway, her attention is back with them. My last glimpse as I round the corner is of Buffy with her arm around Dawn, climbing porch steps to where the people who know them best are waiting.  
  
"Lost her, lost her," the tires sing, all the way back to Los Angeles.  
  
END  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



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